The sights everyone tells you not to miss, picked with kids in mind. Old amusement parks with wooden coasters, palace guards marching through the square, towers and spires to climb for a view over the rooftops, and harbor walks past painted houses. We looked at which ones hold a kid's attention, so you can plan a day around the big names without dragging anyone through a museum they'll hate.
Vor Frelsers Kirke is a 1696 baroque church whose spiral spire has its staircase wound around the outside. The climb is 400 steps: narrow, steep wooden stairs inside the tower, then 150 open steps to the top, 86 meters up, with views in every direction. Inside, look for the carved elephant organ.
The climb suits kids who are steady on steep stairs. Strollers stay at the bottom.
Nyhavn is a 450-meter canal dug in the 1670s, lined with brightly painted 17th and 18th-century townhouses and moored historic wooden ships. Canal tour boats leave from the quay, and the Memorial Anchor stands at the harbor end. Hans Christian Andersen lived in three of the houses.
The quay is mostly restaurants and cafés, so it suits a stroll and a boat ride more than a long day out.
CopenHill is a ski slope, hiking trail and rooftop park built on top of the Amager Bakke incineration plant. The green artificial piste runs from steep black and red sections at the top to blue and green runs below, with magic carpet lifts and a freestyle park.
Kids who don't ski can ride rental tubes down the sledding hill, or hike the trails and stairs up to the rooftop café.
Christiansborg, on the Slotsholmen islet, is still a working palace used by the Royal Family for state visits. Kids can walk the Great Hall, lined with Bjørn Nørgaard's colorful tapestries of 1000 years of Danish history, and see the Throne Room, whose balcony is where Frederik X was proclaimed king in 2024. Below the palace, a tour leads through 800-year-old ruins, and the Royal Kitchen and Stables complete the visit.
Four matching palaces ring a square with a 1771 statue of King Frederik V, and the Danish royal family lives in two of them. Every day the Royal Life Guard marches from its barracks by Rosenborg Castle, often with a band, to change the guard here.
Inside Christian VIII's Palace, the Amalienborg Museum shows royal offices and private rooms kept as they were, the Gala Hall and the Fabergé Chamber.
Christian IV built the Round Tower in 1642 as an observatory. Instead of stairs, a wide cobbled spiral ramp winds up past the Library Hall and its changing exhibitions, then two short staircases lead to an open platform 34.8 m above the street, with views over the old town's rooftops.
On winter evenings, astronomers open the dome and let kids look through the 1929 telescope at the Moon or planets.
A bronze statue of the mermaid from Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 fairy tale, shown as she becomes human, sitting on a rock at the water's edge on the Langelinie promenade. Sculptor Edvard Eriksen modeled her on his wife, Eline.
She is small, 1.25 meters tall, and has stood here since 1913. Reading the story first gives kids something to look for when they find her.
Christian IV built Rosenborg as a summerhouse in his garden and finished it as a three-story castle in 1624. Kids can walk through his rooms, including the bedchamber where he died, and climb to the Knights' Hall, hung with 12 tapestries of Christian V's war victories.
In the Treasury beneath the castle, the Danish crown jewels, royal crowns and Crown regalia are on show. The King's Garden lies outside.
The sights everyone tells you not to miss, picked with kids in mind. Old amusement parks with wooden coasters, palace guards marching through the square, towers and spires to climb for a view over the rooftops, and harbor walks past painted houses. We looked at which ones hold a kid's attention, so you can plan a day around the big names without dragging anyone through a museum they'll hate.
Vor Frelsers Kirke is a 1696 baroque church whose spiral spire has its staircase wound around the outside. The climb is 400 steps: narrow, steep wooden stairs inside the tower, then 150 open steps to the top, 86 meters up, with views in every direction. Inside, look for the carved elephant organ.
The climb suits kids who are steady on steep stairs. Strollers stay at the bottom.
Nyhavn is a 450-meter canal dug in the 1670s, lined with brightly painted 17th and 18th-century townhouses and moored historic wooden ships. Canal tour boats leave from the quay, and the Memorial Anchor stands at the harbor end. Hans Christian Andersen lived in three of the houses.
The quay is mostly restaurants and cafés, so it suits a stroll and a boat ride more than a long day out.
CopenHill is a ski slope, hiking trail and rooftop park built on top of the Amager Bakke incineration plant. The green artificial piste runs from steep black and red sections at the top to blue and green runs below, with magic carpet lifts and a freestyle park.
Kids who don't ski can ride rental tubes down the sledding hill, or hike the trails and stairs up to the rooftop café.
Christiansborg, on the Slotsholmen islet, is still a working palace used by the Royal Family for state visits. Kids can walk the Great Hall, lined with Bjørn Nørgaard's colorful tapestries of 1000 years of Danish history, and see the Throne Room, whose balcony is where Frederik X was proclaimed king in 2024. Below the palace, a tour leads through 800-year-old ruins, and the Royal Kitchen and Stables complete the visit.
Four matching palaces ring a square with a 1771 statue of King Frederik V, and the Danish royal family lives in two of them. Every day the Royal Life Guard marches from its barracks by Rosenborg Castle, often with a band, to change the guard here.
Inside Christian VIII's Palace, the Amalienborg Museum shows royal offices and private rooms kept as they were, the Gala Hall and the Fabergé Chamber.
Christian IV built the Round Tower in 1642 as an observatory. Instead of stairs, a wide cobbled spiral ramp winds up past the Library Hall and its changing exhibitions, then two short staircases lead to an open platform 34.8 m above the street, with views over the old town's rooftops.
On winter evenings, astronomers open the dome and let kids look through the 1929 telescope at the Moon or planets.
A bronze statue of the mermaid from Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 fairy tale, shown as she becomes human, sitting on a rock at the water's edge on the Langelinie promenade. Sculptor Edvard Eriksen modeled her on his wife, Eline.
She is small, 1.25 meters tall, and has stood here since 1913. Reading the story first gives kids something to look for when they find her.
Christian IV built Rosenborg as a summerhouse in his garden and finished it as a three-story castle in 1624. Kids can walk through his rooms, including the bedchamber where he died, and climb to the Knights' Hall, hung with 12 tapestries of Christian V's war victories.
In the Treasury beneath the castle, the Danish crown jewels, royal crowns and Crown regalia are on show. The King's Garden lies outside.
